Reviving Sumer

Sumerian goddess Inanna

The endogamous ethnic group known as Iraqi ethnic Shias are the surviving indigenous Sumerian people who against all odds for four thousands years since the fall of the last Sumerian state have successfully survived as a people despite the horrors of cultural, political and religious imperialism. The political leaders of the modern Sumerian people need indeed muster the political courage to break free from the failed British colonial construct of Iraq in embracing and reviving their own indigenous Sumerian heritage, Sumerian culture, Sumerian language and Sumerian gynocentric religion.

Sumer in what is now southern Iraq was the first human civilization from which all other human civilizations were indeed directly or indirectly inspired. Sumerian civilization lasted for thousands of years before facing destruction. Sumer was an early socialist society as led by a hereditary caste who were priests and rulers at the same time and who later in ancient Israel came to be known as Levites, ancient Hebrew Lewi from Sumerian LU*EN, meaning local ruler.

Ethnically Shia Iraqis are descended from Yarsanis who were gradually forced by the Ottoman authorities to become Muslims and then preferred to become Shias so as to avoid complete assimilation into religious imperialism. Yarsanis as Alevis/Bektashis, Yezidis, Druze and Alawites constitute denominations of Median Judaism in the core Middle East and are still religiously led by kohanim, Jewish hereditary priests of Davidic (not Aaronic) patrilineage.

Sumerian religion in Sumer still survives in the form of Mandaeism, the original and most ancient form of Judaism in existence and which is an indigenous Sumerian, indeed direct and uninterrupted local continuation of ancient Sumerian religion. Although Iraqi Shias were Yarsanis prior to being coerced to become Muslims by the Ottoman authorities is Mandaeanism the indigenous ethnic religion of the modern Sumerian people of southern Iraq.

Iraqi Shias thus need rightly be referred to as the surviving Sumerian people and the Sumerian language therefore certainly needs to be revived on the extremely successful model of Modern Hebrew and the Sumerian people returned to its Sumerian heritage by means of local communal reversions to their own indigenous historically evolved Sumerian religion, i.e. Mandaean Judaism. The Sumerian people have a proud heritage and the sacred Shia cities of Iraq were once sacred cities of Zoroastrianism within and through which Median Judaism survived and in their case by means of Yarsani Judaism which was originally a denomination within Zoroastrianism. The land of Sumer is furthermore where the great cultural treasure of the Babylonian Talmud emerged, developed and then spread worldwide as Sumer for centuries served as the center of Rabbinic Judaism worldwide.

The Sumerian people in modern times suffered horribly both under the totalitarian tyranny of Saddam Hussein and during the Jihadist civil war which ensued after the US-led liberation of Iraq. Indeed, Iraq is an artificially imposed British colonial construct and the perpetuation of this dysfunctional state really doesn’t do anyone any favor. Just as central Iraq needs to become part of an independent Aramaic Ezidxan as the area is post-Yezidi and post-Aramaic so needs the Sumerian people its own state in which to revive its ancient and proud indigenous heritage.

Just as ancient Sumer inspired the rise of the ancient world in other early river civilizations from Egypt to China so need a reborn Sumer become a beacon of hope for emancipation and liberation in the broader Middle East by means of letting go of religious imperialism in indeed embracing indigenous Sumerian heritage. Sumer therefore needs to liberate itself from the shackles of colonially constructed Iraq and instead become a model of indigenous renaissance in the region and the world.

A reborn Sumerian state will become a contributor to regional stability and local communal reversions and will put an end to wars of religious imperialism. Anyone seeking to build a stable order in the broader Middle East needs to understand that natural states with ultimately democratic borders are indeed part of the answer to this conundrum.

The Sumerian people no longer believes in the widely discredited European-inspired, neo-imperialist political ideology of Arabism which in Iraq and Syria is widely regarded as a mere fig leaf for totalitarianism, dictatorship, kleptocracy, corruption and government crimes generally. Modern Sumerians are a very traditional indigenous people who marry among themselves and their primary identities are with their people and social descent groups. Mandaeans, the surviving indigenous descendants of the former ruling elite of ancient Sumer have carefully preserved both the Sumerian religious tradition (the original form of Judaism which existed thousands of years of years prior to the emergence of ancient Israel) and Sumerian culture indeed.

The Sumerian people and the surviving Mandaean descendants of Sumer’s former religious and political elite precisely have the social cohesion for building natural statehood with ultimately democratic borders in reviving their language, culture and locally communally reverting to their own gynocentric indigenous traditions. Indeed, modern Sumerians are descendants of the parents of humanity as ancient Sumerians directly or indirectly gave birth to all other human civilizations. Indeed, successful nation building requires social cohesion of some kind or the other. Independent Sumer needs to be democratized and liberalized on the important social models of the de facto independent statelets of Rojava (West Kurdistan in Syria) and Somaliland in mobilizing traditional social units to the cause of social progress in attaining prosperity, freedom and representative government.

The partition of of the now widely discredited British colonial construct of Iraq needs to happen orderly and diplomatically in carefully drawing new borders to make sure that local populations as much as possible don’t find themselves on from what from their perspective would be the wrong side of a new border. This means for instance that the metropolitan region of Baghdad will need to be most carefully partitioned between Sumer and Exidxan. New borders need to be drawn most carefully in making sure that local populations as much as possible end up on their own side of the new borders.

The Sumerian people have much to proud of and so the revival of their indigenous heritage will serve as example to colonized peoples everywhere and indeed inspire victims of religious imperialism to break free from from oppressively imposed shackles of cultural imperialism. The modern Sumerians as an indigenous people are precisely entitled to live free in their own land and feminist revival of gynocentric Sumerian religion including Inanna Temples of Love will serve as a tremendous inspiration and a model indeed for the entire humanity.

Comprehensive decolonization requires embracing indigenous heritage and breaking free from the ideologies of religious imperialism, whether “secular” or religious. There is much room for improvement and advancement of the political system of liberal democracy and further adding worthy axioms to its value system underpinning open society and freely elected representative government worldwide, including in Botswana, India, Israel, Japan, Mongolia, South Africa, South Korea and Taiwan. Genuine revival of indigenous heritage means being able – as Japan has so successfully done in its transition to modernity – to most selectively and very carefully and highly deliberately so combine and synthesize elements of one’s own ancient heritage indeed worthy of perpetuation with precisely valuable cultural inventions of peoples, cultures and civilizations elsewhere in the human world. Yet the fact is that all other human civilizations are in cultural terms precisely grandchildren of Sumer and the people of Sumer needs to once more resume a leadership role in advancing human society as beginning with a feminist revolution of morals in reviving Sumerian gynocentric religion by supplanting worship and belief with feminist ritual sex in Inanna Temples of Love of and for all genders.

Freedom is not free and so the Sumerian people and its political leaders need to muster the courage to break free from the shackles of colonially imposed cultural, religious and political imperialism. The free world including prominently the vibrant people of Israel and the great and culturally diverse people of the United States of America will need to stand with the people of Sumer in their multidimensional strategic process of comprehensive liberation from the tragic inheritance of colonialism and imperialism. Sumerians as every people deserve freedom and that is certainly most achievable with careful planning and carefully measured gradual implementation. The reborn Sumer will need to learn from successful examples of other peoples in the world including those of America, India, Israel, Japan, Rojava (West Kurdistan) and Somaliland in charting its own future on the path to self-determination, liberty, representative government and prosperity indeed.